Ah ha! This little flower has been eluding me for quite a few years...until Eric spotted it yesterday (24 April 2022).
It might be puzzling at first, but this is the blue form of a common wildflower, Scarlet Pimpernel (Lysimachia arvensis, formerly Anagallis arvensis).
Here's a close-up of the more typical flower on the left —
salmon-colored petals with red bases — and the blue form on the right — blue petals with fuschia bases:
We looked carefully and discovered that even though they were side-by-side, the blue flowers were separate plants. Have you seen this blue form of Scarlet Pimpernel before?
5 comments:
That's awesome. I found one back in the '90s and not even once more since then.
Cool, thanks, John! I've been curious about how rare they are, so it's good to hear your experience. Although I haven't searched for them specifically, I've been watching for them for over 15 years. It sounds like the blue form might be more common elsewhere in the world, but perhaps not so common here.
Jackie
So glad to see the cream-colored poppy. I saw one in a front yard in Petaluma, surrounded by golden poppies. It was even more white. I felt sure it was a poppy, but no one I spoke to had heard of a light-colored variant.
I visit some blue scarlet pimpernel every spring just a few feet down the Coast Trail from the trailhead near the Point Reyes hostel. There are a few clumps about a mile down the trail as well. Such a lovely deep shade of blue and an April ritual
I found and photographed a couple of blue colored scarlet pimpernel amongst many normal plants two years ago on the Gaviota Coast of Santa Barbara County.
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